Write About It
by Rb
Summary: An old fanfic writer tries to finish one last request: a selfinsert fanfic. My love letter to the Animorphs fandom.


I have problems classifying this as pure fiction: some parts of it are true, some parts of it are fiction, but nearly everything has some basis in truth. This is, of course, a vanity project, but it's been an awful lot of fun to write.

Disclaimer: I don't own Animorphs, but if someone would like to give it to me, I would be very happy. I do own myself (I hope) and all various permutations of me, though they might not think so. All other people, real or imaginary, mentioned in the story are used either with or without permission, but all in the name of good fun and love.

Rated PG-13 for language, mild sexual innuendo (I'm so grown UP!). Spoilers for possibly anything that has ever occurred in either Animorphs or Anifandom.

**Write About It  
by Rb**

Rb was disappearing, and no one seemed to care.

Rb was morphing slowly, seamlessly, smoothly into Reeb, the real life girl. Rb had been insane, tyrannical, egotistical, and hyperactive, loudmouthed to an extreme and devoid of sexuality. Reeb, on the other hand, was recognizably female, socialist, well-read, and a secret fan of Queer Eye. Reeb never thwapped anyone with frying pans or wrote fanfic or differentiated herself much from the norm in which she hid, except for her pointed reliance on the finer points of English grammar.

Rb had carefully hidden her age, her grade, and any personal information behind walls and walls of words and carefully selected tidbits. Reeb was, in her own words, "a typical atypical high school student" who nearly put her cell phone number in her away messages. Rb was a hybrid of all science fiction and fantasy knowledge; Reeb stuck more firmly to classics with a healthy wallop of Neil Gaiman. Rb shunned social norms. Reeb had a livejournal and spent much of her time trying to reconcile her online world with her real-life friends. Rb had no life and was censored proud of it. Reeb would just use the goddamned swears.

The two identities shared a screen name, a password, and a human body and brain, but any sort of war had long ago ended with Reeb's evisceration of Rb. By the summer of 2004, Rb was barely connected to anything online, and few had called her by that name in two and a half years. Reeb had shamelessly stolen all of Rb's good jokes.

Then, out of the blue, a mysterious e-mail appeared in her mailbox from a person she couldn't remember.

Rb, since you're back, would you please start writing self-insertion fics again?You've seen what Wraithlord42, Mersang and some of the other new authors are up to, right?Well, if you haven't noticed, Steve-0's back. I'm trying to get Kyra to come back as well. The new authors are trying to re-start the self-insertion era here.I figured that as one of the few remaining fanfic readers from the original self-insertion era ((I was Jardath back then)) that I should reunite the masters and mistresses of Animorphs self-insertion fics to show these new kids a lesson or two about self-insertion fics.Rb, I know you used to hate me, but please forgive me! In times like these, we could use the return of Sailor Dmnit!

Reeb's first reaction was to laugh. "Fanfic? I've barely written fanfiction in forever!"

She clicked the X in the corner of the screen, and the offending piece of mail disappeared from her screen. Lazily, Reeb prepared to get up and get ready for her responsible job at a local bookstore. As she got up, she accidentally clicked on the letter again.

"They want self-insert?" Reeb muttered, looking at it closer. "What kind of person wants people to write more self-insert? It's the lowest form of low. It's not even really fanfic. If someone's going to write about themselves, they might at least have the decency to put it in their livejournals, so no one has to wade through the deluded pieces of crap by accident. It's not like anyone actually has an interesting life, not unless they're David Sedaris or Neil Gaiman or someone like that.

"Besides, writing self-insert is just another kind of fantasy. Who wants to read someone else's fantasy? If it's not your fantasy, why would you be interested in it?

"And anyway," Reeb continued, gathering up steam as she closed her laptop and plugged it back in, "all the self-insertion plots have been done already. We've had Tobias's sister and Rachel's identical twin brother, the Andalites who appear randomly and fall in love with Ax – that even became a book plot – the good-hearted Yeerks and the children of the Ellimists. There have been hundreds of post-#54 denial fics, alternate universes and time travel and flat-out arguing about how K.A. could let such a thing happen. None of them make any sense at all! Why can't people have the sense to let canon be?

"Then there are the lemon fics, which are just as bad. We've had people write steamy sex scenes with Andalites, who don't even have visible orifices! There are fics where Marco gets with Ax, Jake gets with Tobias, Rachel and Cassie, Cassie and David, Jake and Marco, Marco and Cassie, Jake and Ax, Rachel and Jake – ugh, that crazy pregnancy fic – and that one fic where Melissa hooked up with Ax in human morph because he reminded her of Rachel." Reeb rubbed her temples. "That was weird, to say the least.

"And anyway, all of the really crazy self-insertion is over and done with. It got old. There's only so many jokes you can poke at any given writer's expense. The War was a scary thing and I never understood how D.M.P. kept going without going absolutely crazy – well, more crazy. The Animorphs in these fics are always portrayed as really cynical teens who are sick and tired of bumbling authors inserting themselves – and then Rachel's always pretty sadistic, and Marco tries to get laid and fails, and Ax tries to get laid and succeeds, and Tobias is Legolas without the pretty hair, and Cassie and Jake usually die off quickly because no one can figure out good jokes with them.

"And anyway," Reeb continued under her breath as she entered her bookstore, albeit under her breath, "it's not like any of the fanfic writers really remember writing this stuff anyway. We're all in college by now, aren't we? I think the only one I still talk to who writes is Forlay, and even she's busy with her RL stuff..."

"Excuse me?" asked a shrill female voice. Reeb snapped to attention and focused on the high-school aged girl in front of her, a typically tanned teenybopper.

"Yes, can I help you?" Reeb responded automatically.

"Yeah. Do you have any books by this author?" The girl pulled out a dog-eared copy of Katherine Applegate's "Ocean City" series.

"I love that author!" Reeb gushed. "She's fantastic."

"Yeah, have you read this series? It's about Zoey and these really hot guys?" The girl had a way of making everything, even the dullest statement, into a question.

"Er, no," Reeb said, her smile fading. "I read a later series by her..."

"The Making Out series?" the girl pressed.

"Something like that," Reeb said glumly.

"You know, it's really like the same series? Only by a new title?"

"How about that."

"So, do you have it or something?"

"No."

Reeb went home and tried not to think about self-insert fics, but failed miserably. Inside her head was a plot, the likes of which hadn't been incubated since she'd given up writing fanfic – with only one or two or five false starts – two years ago.

Late at night, she turned back on her computer and started typing frantically, not pausing until she'd typed two pages of the worst kind of pretentious bullshit.

"This is going to need lots of help," she sighed.

So she signed online and IMed her 'twin' Forlay, knowing that the older girl always gave the best advice.

Rb: Forlay, I think I'm going to write a self-insert fic.

Forlay: lol, you go girl! Remember "Ellipses"? That was great.

Rb: Er, yeah. If I recall correctly, it involved you torturing D.M.P. and me very, very slowly and painfully.

Forlay: Revenge is a dish best served cold, yup, lol.

Rb: Yeah, right. But listen, Forlay. This kid asked me to show up all these new self-insertion writers, but I'm thinking about doing something really different. Self-insertion fanfics are a dime a dozen, and I never thought I was very good at them to begin with. I don't want to just be a parody writer, and I don't want to make fun of people I don't know – that's mean, and I don't want to be a mean writer at all. I don't even want to really involve the Animorphs, except in a sort of abstract way. I'm thinking that I'm going to write this as sort of an Adaptation-style, if that's possible, and without the masturbation. I've been asked to write an impossible fic, so maybe it'll be a series of unfinished, ludicrously overwritten vignettes all starring me, or a type of me, maybe I can bring back that Arbee character from A Lack of Cents. A bunch of variations on the theme... but still, I don't want this to be completely nonsensical, I want it to have a point. The point is – the point is – is that self-insertion is intrinsically flawed, because they focus the attention off of the writing and the plot and the setting and all of the other important details, and focus attention on the new character, which is nothing more than an idealized version or overexaggerated caricature of the author himself or herself. I don't want to write silly little plotless things anymore. I'm nearly of age, I'm a serious writer, I've even been published – did I tell you I was published? – and I don't want to write things without a point any longer. If I'm going to go back into fanfiction, I want to do it with a bang, I want to revolutionize the field, I don't want this to be just another joking parody. I want to make people think about the point of fanfiction, at the ways we act out our fantasies and dreams and wants through this medium, and the reality of fanfiction – isn't it something intrinsically intangible yet practically a physical connection to another world, much like the role of the Internet in general?

Forlay: Sorry, Rb. I was making out with Billy. Did you say something?

Rb: ... I think I'm going to write a self-insert fic.

Forlay: Really? Kewl. Can I be in it?

Rb: Yeah, of course you will be.

Forlay: Can I have sex with Rachel? Ooh, ooh. Can I have sex with Rachel and Billy at the same time?

Rb: ...thunk

The problem with writing self-insertion fanfic, Reeb realized very early on, was that she, Reeb, had no desire to write self-insert.

"Maybe it meant something to me in the past," Reeb mused as she waited in her car for the drawbridge to the island to close. "Maybe I used to want...what did I want? I wanted a boyfriend just like Tobias, only without a little of the angst. Well, you can't separate Tobias and his angst, because an angst does a body good, but still, I'd like him not to be obsessing constantly over his problems. Oh, yeah, and with Marco's sense of humor. And possibly Marco's looks, since it never said whether or not Tobias was actually good-looking. I couldn't really ever like the new Tobias model. Sure, he was an actual blond, but he felt like jailbait..."

Reeb chewed on a strand of her messy brown hair. "So what the hell am I supposed to do about this self-insertion thing? I mean, I guess I could write a steamy post-#54 romance 'twixt Marco and myself, although that makes me feel a little creepy. I guess I could be, hell, I don't know, some sort of actress – wait, I know what I could be! I could be a scriptwriter, that would satisfy both my real dream of being a writer and my self-insertion dream of being loved all night long by Marco the Sexy!

"Oh, my god. I did not just say that out loud, did I? Tobias, Tobias, I love you Tobias, you angsty bird... What can happen to Tobias? Maybe I can twist time to bring Rachel back – oh, I hate time-twisting fics! It's so sloppy, no one considers the real ramifications to the time-space continuum...hmm, maybe that's it! I can write a fic about a self-insertion character who tries to fix the end of the series but fails and ends up with Jake's head (grown slightly bald) upon a platter...

"Nah, what kind of crap would that be?

"I know, I can write a songfic! That's always good! I can make fun of a current song, too, like...like...I know, shake it like a Polaroid picture!...no. That sucks too. And I deserve negative points for knowing such a crummy song. I should use a good song, like Savage Garden...no, no, I could use a song from a musical! No one uses songs from musicals! And I could use, um, Avenue Q and have Marco sing to Jake 'If You Were Gay' and – perfect! A crossover! With puppets!

"You know, actually, Jake has never gotten the respect he deserves. I only realized he had a personality in #31, after more than half the series was over, but still, he had some semblance of something. I should really write a Jake fic to even out my Rachel/Tobias/Marco bias...but I never really liked Jake/Cassie, and I can't really think of Jake as being gay. But since I've always identified so strongly with Rachel, writing a self-insert fic with myself as Jake's love interest is, well, ugh. Strangely incestual.

"No matter what, I'm not writing a romance with Ax. Goddamned Andalites.

"Goddamnit, I've been sitting her for twenty minutes and I can't think up a single workable idea. I suck. I suck so much. I'm stupid and I'm sleep-deprived. I hate this humidity, it makes my hair act like a clown's wig. Oh, my god. I did not just say an entire sentence about my hair. I'm so pathetic, I'm turning into a total typical teenage girl. Any moment now, I'm going to have an urge to paint my toenails so they match my outfit.

"I've gotta focus. I've got to think about this fic. Ficficificficficfuck! This sucks. I suck. Why did I agree to this? I should have never agreed to this. I can't do this. I'm so ugly and stupid and fat. I should drive my car off this bridge right now and end it all, rather than disgrace myself further!"

Reeb jammed her foot down on the accelerator. Unfortunately for her plans of seppuku, the car didn't respond. Reeb blinked, looked down, and realized it was still in 'park'. Further inspecting her surroundings, she realized the bridge had already finished closing and that traffic was attempting to resume. An angelic chorus of bugles greeted her revelation.

Reeb rolled down her window, yelled "FUCK YOU ALL," switched to drive, and shot over the bridge like a bat out of hell.

Reeb signed online that night armed with her three and a half pages (single-spaced, Times New Roman font, .wpd file) and sent copies out to every online friend who even vaguely remembered Animorphs or her glory days as a V.I.W.

The response from all of her friend was the same: "What the fuck? Why?"

It was too hard to explain why writing self-insert, or even a fanfic at all, had suddenly become important. Rb just shrugged and let people fill in their own reasons.

"I don't want this to be zany," Rb explained to her longtime fangirl, AniSky. "I want to be taken seriously, I want to do something unusual. Maybe a critique of Animorphs fanfiction in general...I want to make fun of the people who take self-insertion so seriously,. But at the same time, condemn the people who only use cheap gags and little plot."

AniSky nodded. "Um, like, yeah?"

"Do you understand what I'm saying? I want to build something multilayered and unusual. I want a plot within a plot. I want to write a fic about...maybe about a self-insertion character who doesn't want to be a self-insertion character, who is aware of the fourth wall and wishes she didn't, who tries to succeed but can't..."

"That sounds great!" AniSky cheered.

"Of course, I could always string together a bunch of cheap gags and tie them together with a cheap 'Author can do anything except control her characters!' line," Rb said disgustedly.

"That could definitely work," AniSky enthused.

"Or I could jump off a bridge."

"Ooh, dramatic..."

"Fangirls," groused Reeb, and signed off.

Months passed, and Reeb tried hard not to think about fanfiction, Animorphs or otherwise. She started college a thousand miles from home, far away from the native sands and smells of New Jersey. She had a roommate, Calculus homework, a NaNoWriMo novel going nowhere.

"What's missing in my life?" Reeb pondered one November night, sitting in her dorm's lounge and watching West Wing DVDs. "I'm going to the school of my dreams, I have warm fuzzy socks, and I have enough Aaron Sorkin to last until Thanksgiving. Why am I so upset?"

"Hey, Reeb! How's your novel going?" her housemate Michelle called out.

"Er. Great!" Reeb replied, hiding her wince.

"I've got a great novel, I'm about thirteen-thousand words into it, it's all about my character who's a vampire but really cool and wicked and has lots of sex, I'm so excited about it, do you want to read my latest draft?"

"Any time," Reeb said, and escaped into her room. Pulling up Microsoft Word (evil yet readily available), she clicked through her old files. "Where is it...here."

She opened up the self-insert fanfic folder and began to type.

_My name is Reeb._

That was as far as she got. A plot would have eventually emerged: her self-insert character would be requested to save the Animorphs from the ghostwriters, or from badly written fanfiction, something of the sort. But she got bored with the plot (such that there was) and there was something going on in the dorm – a house meeting, or someone was baking brownies, or people were talking in the hallways about TV shows from their childhood, and Reeb had to join in. There was life being lived out there – why should she sit at her computer alone?

And so went the next couple of years for Reeb. College was good to her: she made friends and took cool classes. Even her hair became more manageable. She wrote many academic papers about important topics (intermarriage in the 1950s, New Jersey statehood in the 1770s, the significance of St. Augustine's stolen pears). She learned about meta-fiction, and almost as quickly learned to despise it: it was so often used as a cheap gimmick for seeming cool and artistic, for disguising a lack of substance with style or irony. She left her K.A. Applegate books at home and became addicted to the works of Joss Whedon instead. She never wrote fanfic, and rarely read it any longer; fiction seemed a pale substitute for life itself.

She kept in contact with her old friends, of course, through Livejournal and AIM sessions. She was the first person Forlay told about her new novel ("It's going to reinvent the world of literary bondage!"). Halfway through the summer, AniSky showed up on her doorstep with an oversized duffelbag and a restraining order stating simply "Don't Feed the Fangirl". Within days, AniSky had settled into Reeb's apartment, doing the cooking, cleaning, and mixing drinks in exchange a place on the couch and "getting to breathe in the same air as the Master." Reeb smiled wanly and tried to give good feedback on AniSky's novel, which involved several different kind of leprechauns. And so life was good.

Until. Through an extraordinary confluence of events not really worth recounting here, Reeb ended up halfway across the world and, for the first time in ten years, was without access to AIM. The only English-language books the library had were Danielle Steel novels and a tattered copy of Ulysses. (A sudden, terrible thought: what if the books mated? Stream-of-consciousness romance?) Out of boredom, she decided to look at her old files – the ones with the old, unfinished, unbearable fanfics and the self-important websites and the egotistical lists of quotes.

She expected to cringe in embarrassment. There was a lot of cringing, but less than expected.

"I wrote so much," she marveled. "And about everything. And I didn't care how bad it was – I just wrote!"

She read her old files and rediscovered her long-dormant inner fangirl.

When she slept, her right hand curved, as if holding onto the handle of a frying pan.

Reeb was morphing as fast as she could, from tiger to ant to koala in mere seconds. And the Animorphs were there, watching her, judging her for speed and precision. Cassie was the harshest, which seemed wrong to Reeb's dream-self: wasn't Cassie supposed to be the nice one? But no matter how quickly she morphed, Cassie never seemed satisfied, until finally Reeb gave up in exhaustion.

Cassie slapped her across the face. "That's for never finishing the post-#54 fic you had planned about me dealing with being the only Animorph left on the planet!"

Reeb touched her cheek in shock. "I . . . I never even told anyone about that."

"Well, it would have rocked," Cassie huffed. "Why the hell did you give us up for DIGIMON?!" She slapped the stunned Reeb again, then stormed off.

The rest of the Animorphs followed her, although Marco lingered behind. "Did I hear right? You think I'm sexy, right? I thought you had that thing for Bird-boy."

Reeb blinked, nonplussed. Her cheek really hurt. "Yes, well, I have this theory that all girls liked Tobias because he was sort of this proto-emo boy, sort of preparing us all for boy bands ranging from New Found Glory to The Libertines. I mean, he just had so much angst, if he had ever gotten stuck in human morph than he would have probably dyed his hair black and worn lots of eyeliner, and I think Rhi and Nina were right about the Jake/Tobias subtext at the end of #54. So in hindsight, the Marco ship was really the right one to jump on, though he was never right for Rachel, I still think Marco/Cassie would have been viable, though possibly not happy, as my fanfiction attests to . . . "

"So, like, you like me?" Marco asked hopefully, coming closer.

"Well, I have a boyfriend," Reeb replied automatically. "I'm converting him to Animorphs fandom, and you're actually his favorite character . . . well, after Tobias, anyway."

"But he's not here, is he?" Marco was definitely within her very American-sized personal space now. "So, we could go out, right? And then we could do it, right?"

"Huh?"

"I've heard things about you fanfic writers," he leered. "All those lemons you write, it's gotta show some sort of experience, right? You're all ecchi, aren't you? I bet you're really good at – "

"Oh my god!" Reeb blurted out in shock. "You're so – young!"

It was Marco's turn to be taken aback. "What?"

"Well, when the book series ended, you were 17, right? And I was in high school when it came out. Now, I'm – god, you're way too young! I don't even think it would be legal!"

"B-but . . . " Marco's lower lip trembled. "I really wanted to get laid! None of the supermodels would -- "

Reeb kicked him in the balls. "Shut up, you little lecher."

She paused for a moment. "And when did you learn Japanese?"

Reeb woke up suddenly to her roommate's snores. She shivered as she remembered her dream. This was getting a little too surreal.

Whenever Reeb needed advice, she always went to the same place: her best friend/psychic sister NS, who had been there for her ever since the two had met in the AOL chatroom "Cassies Barn".

Reeb checked her cell phone: 5:57 AM. A very decent time to talk to NS. She started texting.

Rb: I'm writing this self-insert Anific and I can't stop. Why am I doing this?

She waited. Sure enough, there came the response:

NS: Probably because of unresolved issues re: your former days as a BNF.

Rb: I was never a BNF! That term is anachronistic. I was a V.I.W.!

NS: Oh, right. Speaking of fanfic, had idea for Oscar Wilde/Walt Whitman RPS, possibly based on actual encounter? Y/N?

Rb: Yes, though Wilde, at lease, was more pederast than gay.

She paused, then sent another text:

Rb: I really sincerely hope I'm the first human to send a text with the word "pederast" in it. At least in this context.

She waited, but there was no reply. Probably NS had used up her texts for the month, or maybe she was too busy writing her B.A. thesis on the Harry/Draco fandom and the love that dare not speak its name.

Why was everyone writing a novel except for her? Why was she stuck with this godamned writer's block on everything except for a silly indulgent self-insert fic someone had requested nearly three years ago? In short: why did she suck so damn much?

Reeb was at a loss. Not even singing karaoke to the RENT soundtrack could help her. There was only one source of wisdom left in her world: K.A. Applegate. Reeb resolved to write a letter, for surely K.A.A. could solve everything.

Now, most people, when writing to The Mother Goddess We Revere Above All, would have to send their letters c/o Scholastic, and hope that some intern was still forwarding fanmail. But Reeb had long ago conned K.A.A.'s e-mail address out of Jeff Sampson, who was easily distracted by shiny things. She'd promised never to abuse her knowledge, but desperate times called for angsty letters.

_Dear K.A. Applegate,_

_Hi. You don't know who I am, but I'm your biggest fan. I've been reading your books for over half my life, and they have had more impact on me than my parents, my school, and my religion combined. Most of my beliefs and the vast majority of my friends can be traced directly or indirectly to Animorphs – and Everworld, too, but mostly Animorphs._

_I decided to become a writer because I wanted to affect other kids the way your writing affected me. I started writing and realized almost immediately: my writing sucked. It sucked hardcore. I was nine or ten years old and I knew my writing sucked. I had no idea how to invent plot or characters, how to make something interesting to read, how to literally put two words together. Even I hated the stuff I produced. So I decided to make it easier on myself and write fanfic for a while. I could take characters or situations that I already liked, and expand upon them. It would be good practice for being a real writer._

_So I started writing fanfic and publishing it to the Internet (this was in the old days, when the only people writing fic were Trekkies), and all of these people started reading my work, and they decided that what I wrote was good. It wasn't just people my own age – it was older people, too. Rachel Morgan-Wall read "The Night" and called me a prodigy. She was 16; I was a sixth grader. I felt like . . . popular, practically. _

_Then I got older while Animorphs stayed in the same age range and I got into different fandoms and eventually I decided to stop writing fanfic and start writing original fiction. I gave up fanfic, all fanfic, to focus on my original work._

_And . . . nothing's happened since._

_I mean, I've written a little bit, mostly for creative writing classes I've taken, mostly of the oh-so-trendy creative nonfiction where I take what actually happens in my real life and polish it up, mostly making myself wittier and with some more dramatic tension to keep people interested (it's not lying, it's being creative), but it's not adding up to very much. When I was writing fanfic, I could publish something new on every three days! And I had ideas, about everything. There was always a new Rachel/Tobias angle to explore, or something that would be perfect for Marco, or a new pop song to filk. But when I try to deal with original ideas, I'm running on empty. And this wouldn't be so bad, except everyone else in the world has their own novel or literary thesis that they're exploring, while I'm supposed to be a writer and all I have is a big fat nothing. _

_What can I do, K.A.? I've lived my life according to your wisdom (and your occasional KASUs) for so long., surely you can help me here. Why is it that the only thing I can write seems to be a self-insertion fanfic?_

_Please write back soon. My sanity may be at stake. And this is not the good kind of insanity a'coming. _

She hesitated at which name to put down. Finally, she signed her real name – a name that had never before appeared on the Internet, at least not until Facebook came around.

Reeb e-mailed her letter from a little Internet cafe where none of the keyboards were set in English and everyone kept trying to make her drink Turkish coffee. Bad, bad idea.

And she waited.

Two weeks later, Reeb returned to her homeland with tanned arms, a freckled face, and no inspiration whatsoever. AniSky met her at the door to her apartment. "Hello, Reeb-sama!"

"AniSky, you know it makes me nervous when you mix my fandoms," Reeb said wanly.

I got a lot done on my novel while you were away!"

"That's nice . . . "

"I also ordered the Thin Mints you like. I know they're the best for those late-night writing binges!"

"Thanks . . ."

"Sabertooth really wants to live here, too. He's really little, he can probably sleep on your armchair."

"I'll, uh, think about it."

"Oh, and I checked all your e-mail for you. Nothing too exciting, though you did get this one thing, it's probably spam, it was from this really weird address, something like – hey, where are you going?"

But Reeb was already bolting for her computer. A letter from K.A. Applegate herself was waiting.

_Hi – _

_I don't know how you got this e-mail address, but if Jeff Sampson gave it to you in exchange for more Buffy merchandise, tell him he's cruising for a bruising._

_I'm flattered you liked my books so much. To be honest, I wrote them to pay the bills, not to change the world, but it's nice they serve a dual purpose, anyway._

_I don't know what your problem is with writing fanfic, exactly. As long as you're not charging for it, I don't mind. Most of great literature is fanfic: it's derivative from or dependent upon what's come before it. Where would we be without the Tolkien hacks to create fantasy worlds for us, or the historical fiction writers who make the boring lives of our ancestors that much more interesting Without fanfic, we'd never have any of the Star Trek novels – and I probably wouldn't be writing at all._

_So go on and do your thing. Just tru to keep it free of too many heaving bosoms. I've got young kids, you know._

_-- K.A.A._

"Oh. My. Gah," said AniSky.

"I know."

"That's a real, live, letter from K.A."

"I know."

"And she's telling you to write! Fanfic, even! What are you going to do now?!"

A slow smile spread across Rb's face. "Well – write about it, of course!"


End file.
